Would we (Earth) show up in our universe's stats pages?
gabrielweinberg.com
gabrielweinberg.com
In terms of the actual article, while black holes might account for most of the bits of information in the universe (I don't really understand the logic behind this) I would assume that most of that is just "noise" and would be filtered out leaving the bits of information put out by humanity as a statistically interesting anomaly.
What makes you think we're intelligent?
Less facetiously: what makes you think we -- or our signals -- reach the minimum threshold of intelligence to be of interest?
(Danger, Will Robinson: anthropocentric assumptions ahoy!)
a) That's one hell of a sampling bias.
b) The universe is roughly 14 billion years old, though stars only started forming about 12 billion years ago. The Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old. I don't see how you are able to draw that conclusion. Other factors that we are unable measure might allow us to make the conjecture if they take certain values.
Edit: formatting
Early stars needed to die before there was enough atoms above helium to form rocky planets. You need to stars close enough together so that the dead stars can be formed from these remnants. There is a narrow band of stars capable of having rocky planets let alone planets in the habitable zone. It's unlikely to form stable planetary orbits in binary star systems and stars must be small enough to last long enough to allow life to form. etc.
There may be millions of planets capable of supporting life in the Milky Way, but I don't think many of them are much older than the earth.
That's also one hell of a sampling bias!
Perhaps most such life exists near black holes.
> I'd say it's even possible we are one of the first, if not THE first, intelligent lifeform ....
Or maybe the first that isn't near a black hole.
(Just a couple of thoughts)
Very human-centered viewpoint there. Maybe all they care about is how much like 'ssevh5' the patterns of galaxies are, or any other ineffable measure - like us with our car drag races.
"(where intelligence is measured by awareness of the universe/capability of affecting it etc.)"
Dinosaurs couldn't affect things, and when they avoided eating some plants that was just ... luck? Again, you're defining things in a vague human way so only humans fit your description.
"I would assume that most of that is just "noise" and would be filtered out leaving the bits of information put out by humanity as a statistically interesting anomaly."
Unless we aren't a statistically interesting anomaly. Have you reminded yourself how big the universe is lately?
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/07/ (Hubble Ultra Deep Field).
If the universe were a computer simulation, every single atom (or higher-energy particle for that matter) would have to be included for the simulation to be able to run accurately, probably represented as objects of some kind with associated state. (lets just ignore possible optimizations, shall we? :P )
Every single one of these would consume resources, or bits if you like.
Where would you expect to find the biggest amounts and concentrations of objects and bits? On a planet which has so low gravitational mass that it can only wield its will upon a small moon or a black hole so massive that not even light can escape it?
Where would you expect to find the biggest amount changes and activity? At a small planet where normal laws of physics and energy reign supreme, or in a black hole where the energies are so immense that even space-time ceases to exist?
I'm putting my money on the black hole.
An interesting thought occurs to me, though: wouldn't a black hole be the perfect way for a non-omniscient being to sample the universe? Because any information you encounter will become quantum-entangled to you in some way or another, you'll want to make sure that you aren't mucking up the samples taken with your presence—and what better way is there to ensure that than to have information probes that look and act like natural phenomena, and "disconnect" the source of any data they gather from the rest of the universe before working on it? It makes UFO abductions seem mightily small-scale.
/me takes it all with a pinch and a half of salt
/me takes it all with a pinch and a half of salt
On the other hand, if they were interested in studying intelligent life, we're probably in a nicely organized database along with millions (perhaps billions) of similar forms of life.